November 21

Beloved of Good Shepherd Church,

Grace to you and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord!

Love is the eager relinquishment of power for the sake of the well being of another. Love is a self-emptying movement of one’s own inner being toward another out of sheer fondness and an unexplainable attraction.

Love is not rational and therefore cannot be defended with reason, rather love spills forth sloppily and washes over the hard edges of whatever and whoever it’s aimed at.

Jesus Christ is the embodied love of God pouring forth into the world not to conquer, but to be our companion and Lord through thick and thin. Jesus' presence among us takes the sting out of our loneliness and feeds the hunger that rumbles inside our bodies with love.

This Sunday is commonly referred to as Christ the King Sunday. It is the last day of the church year. It is a day on which we proclaim that after all is said and done Jesus is the king of our lives, our north star, leader, teacher, friend, savior, and Lord. Jesus is not a king in any traditional sense because he does not strive for power in a traditional sense. In fact, Jesus does not regard his status as the Son of God as something to be leveraged in any way whatsoever. His way is the Way of Love, thus he is constantly relinquishing power for the sake of the well being of others and out of a deep and spiritual fondness for all people.

Jesus’ ultimate act of love was to give the power of pure grace in the form of forgiveness to the people who killed him. When he did that the kingdom of God burst into being, because the kingdom of God is the dynamic flow of self-emptying love into people and places that need love.

At Good Shepherd Church our focus is on building a foundation of love in each of us individually and in the collective of our parish community, so that we can reach out with the pure love of Jesus. The world

Remember this always - God loves you, and I love you too!

Love is all, 

Hendree+